


Team Third Wheeling

by magicites



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Mutual Pining, obnoxiously oblivious: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: Why isn't Noelle sitting with her teammates at lunch?





	Team Third Wheeling

Noelle takes a seat in the main cafeteria of the Bureau of Balance, sighing to herself as she looks at the lone carton of oil on her tray. If robots don’t need to eat, then robot ghosts  _certainly_ don’t need to eat, but drinking oil keeps her gears running at top speed. With all the training Killian and Carey are putting Noelle through to get her up to speed, she needs all the boosts she can get.

Besides, unlike Noelle, Carey and Killian are not eight foot tall robots, so they definitely need a little time to eat. Killian’s stomach was starting to grumble during practice, and a hungry Killian is _not_ a fun Killian to be around. 

She feels a little bad for not joining her teammates at the table they claimed for themselves, but a quick glance at them reaffirms her current decision. To quote that silly catchphrase Taako uses whenever anyone asks him for a favor: Noelle's good over here.

They’re lovely gals, but…

Noelle’s train of thought is interrupted when she hears something crash down onto the table in front of her. She looks up with a startled, “Huh!?” and is barely able to reign in her blaster before it blasts a giant hole in the floor. She still hasn’t gotten control of all her arms yet, that dang one in particular.

“Oh!” squeaks the voice of Angus McDonald. She finally looks up to see him sitting in front of her, watching her with wide, terrified eyes. “I’m sorry Noelle! I didn’t mean to scare you, I-I just wanted to say hello!”

The boy has a gift for sounding eager, even when he’s terrified.

“Aw shucks, Angus. I didn’t mean to nearly blow a hole in the moon an’ scare ya. Still getting used to this dang body,” she explains, punctuating her statement by banging one of her gorilla-shaped hands on the table. It leaves a sizable dent behind. “Whoops.”

“I certainly can’t help if you blow a hole in the Bureau and blast us out of the sky to our deaths, but I might be able to fix that dent!” Angus picks up something off his tray that looks eerily similar to a lone chopstick. Only once it’s in his hand does Noelle recognize it as a wand. 

He flicks it towards the dent and mutters something under his breath, but nothing happens. He tries a second time, followed quickly by a third, but his efforts gives him nothing but a few sad sparks that fly out the tip of his wand.

Noelle covers her oil carton with a hand as the sparks fall. Blowing a hole in the moon is bad, but so is starting an oil fire in the cafeteria.

“Man…I’ve been learning magic from Taako, but I’m still not very good at it,” he admits quietly. 

“Sounds like we’re in the same barrel ‘a trouble. You an’ your magic, an’ me with this here giant body,” Noelle says. 

Angus is probably one of her favorite people here, if only because he’s the only other kid in the entire Bureau. She would have been sixteen this year if she wasn’t a robot ghost; she was fifteen and three quarters when she died. Her parents had told her that she was a young lady now and couldn't afford to play all day, but she didn't exactly feel all that mature or adult-like. She still feels more like a kid than an adult most days, so having someone so unapologetically young around is comforting.

“Anyways,” Angus says. replacing the wand in his hand for the apple on his tray, “Is there a problem between you and Killian or Carey? You’re not sitting with them like you normally are."

“Well,” Noelle pauses, chancing a glance over to the women in question. Carey is - for some reason - standing on the table, showing off what looks like another rogue pose to a thoroughly impressed Killian, who looks at her like she’s never seen it before. Noelle knows for a fact that isn’t true. 

Carey used that pose at least three times during their morning training session. 

Against Killian. 

Noelle leans across the table and drops her voice to a whisper, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course, Noelle. I won’t tell anyone.” He takes a bit of his apple.

“Carey an’ Killian won’t stop flirtin’, an’ honestly it’s kinda makin’ me feel awkward. Carey’s been obsessin’ over Killian’s birthday ever since I met her, so I think she’s waitin’ on makin’ a move until then. But wow, the tension is tighter than a stuck lid on a jar of preserves!”

Angus does not look surprised at all. “Oh, I knew that!” he replies cheerfully, as if Noelle wasn’t completely breaching the trust of her new teammates. “Magnus has been teaching Carey how to carve ducks so she can give Killian one for her birthday. I think Carey’s plan is to take Killian to dinner somewhere on the surface, give her the duck, and ask her to be her girlfriend!”

It’s funny how now Noelle’s shock feels exactly like that - a shock of electricity. The sensation quickly fades, and once it does, she chuckles.

“I'm the world’s greatest detective for a reason, but I guess I understand if you forgot that,” Angus finishes.

“I can see how ya got that title! Still…” This time, both Noelle and Angus look over to watch Carey and Killian. Carey is back in her seat, leaning so far over the table that she's practically folding herself in half. Her snout must be a foot away from Killian, watching her like she holds all the secrets to the universe. They're too far away to hear the conversation, but Killian's expression is one that Noelle recognizes instantly, bringing with it a large heaping of secondhand embarrassment.

She’s telling one of her  _awful_  jokes again. She looks so proud of it, too; it must have taken her all day to come up with it. Killian finishes her joke and grins at Carey, who starts laughing so uproariously that Noelle and Angus can hear it from across the cafeteria. Dragonborns don’t blush, but if they did, Carey would be cherry-red by now.

“It’s kind of cute, in a cringe-y, terrible sort of way,” Angus comments.

He’s right, but he also doesn’t have to deal with it for eight hours a day. “So when is Killian’s birthday?” Noelle asks, exasperated. “Next week? Next two weeks?”

“I think it’s in three weeks.”

It’s gonna be a long,  _long_ three weeks. 

**Author's Note:**

> Carey and Killian are basically obnoxious romcom protagonists and no one can tell me otherwise


End file.
